** States agree to take less water from the Colorado River
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Thursday, December 16, 2021
Hoover Dam and Lake Mead. Photo by Andrew Pernick, Bureau of Reclamation, Flickr ([link removed])

Three of the states that depend on the Colorado River announced a voluntary agreement ([link removed]) to withdraw less water from the drought-stressed river. The lower basin states of California, Arizona, and Nevada will work with the Interior Department's Bureau of Reclamation to provide millions in funding over the next two years to support conservation, efficiency, and reduction measures as part of a plan to boost the level of Lake Mead, the country's largest reservoir on the border of Nevada and Arizona. Referred to as the "500+ Plan ([link removed]) ," each state along with Reclamation is committing to adding a combined 500,000 acre-feet of water to Lake Mead in 2022 and 2023.

In August, Reclamation declared a first-ever shortage on the river, triggering mandatory cuts for Arizona and Nevada starting next year. The river is suffering from the impacts of a 20-year megadrought ([link removed]) that is so severe scientists are beginning to speculate that the basin is no longer experiencing drought, but rather sustained "aridification," a process of drying out. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton said ([link removed]) at the annual Colorado River Water Users Association meeting in Las Vegas where the agreement was announced, “We’re experiencing what scientists are calling the new normal, a warmer, drier West. The basin is at a tipping point.”

The Colorado River feeds 40 million Americans ([link removed]) and irrigates millions of acres of cropland. As the water level in Lake Mead continues to drop, more mandatory water delivery cuts for states are on the horizon, as well as the risk the water level will drop too low to generate hydropower from the Hoover Dam. The basin states and Reclamation are just beginning negotiations ([link removed]) over new water use guidelines for the Colorado River basin, which are due by 2026.


** Tracy Stone-Manning's plans for the BLM
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In a wide-ranging interview with Outside magazine ([link removed]) , Bureau of Land Management (BLM) director Tracy Stone-Manning shared some of her plans for how to rebuild the agency, and her priorities as the first Senate confirmed director in five years. Speaking in sharp contrast to the BLM leadership during the Trump administration, Stone-Manning struck an urgent tone in regard to tackling the dual climate and nature crises: ([link removed]) "We’re in the middle of a climate crisis. We’re in the middle of a biodiversity crisis. It’s something we have to address seriously and quickly. And the way to do that is, in part, to restore habitat. We need to put wildlife acres back on the board that aren’t
on the board today."

Stone-Manning also spoke of the need to open access to more public land ([link removed]) : "We’re not making any more land, but we can open up access to land. In Arizona, we just did a Land and Water Conservation Fund purchase. It was 2,500 acres that opened up 30,000 acres of public lands ([link removed].) . That kind of work is clearly important going forward because there’s just no reason on God’s green earth that we should lock up public lands by accident because it’s surrounded by private land."
Quick hits


** Biden's Secretary of Energy to oil industry: "Get your rig count up."
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E&E News ([link removed])


** Washington's Swinomish tribe wants to resurrect clam gardening, save culturally important foods
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Crosscut ([link removed])


** Ute Mountain Ute tribe looks at a future of drought
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The Journal ([link removed])


** Tracy Stone-Manning's plans for rebuilding the BLM and tackling the climate and nature crises
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Outside ([link removed])


** New Mexico's toxic legacy of uranium mining continues
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New Mexico In Depth ([link removed])


** Montrose, Colorado shows a glimpse of a possible future for coal mining communities
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Colorado Sun ([link removed])


** States agree to take less water from the Colorado River
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Los Angeles Times ([link removed]) | E&E News ([link removed])


** Interactive editorial: what the climate crisis looks like in every country in the world
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New York Times ([link removed])
Quote of the day
When you look at the hills, you can see they’re crumbling, and you can see the water that’s re-emerged in the pit. That’s damage left from something the company made a good profit on and the country built its nuclear weapon stockpile on. It made the country great, but it left the community with damaged lands that may or may not be cleaned up. This little glitch is a major defect that has resulted in all the uranium mines over the Navajo Nation and around the West being left as orphan mines."
—Paul Robinson ([link removed]) , Southwest Research and Information Center
Picture this


** @USFWSPacific ([link removed])
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Wisdom returns to Midway Atoll on time to celebrate her 70th birthday! Wisdom, a mōlī (Laysan albatross), is the world's oldest known, banded bird. #WisdomWednesday ([link removed]) Learn more about Wisdom's 2021 return: [link removed] ([link removed]) Photo by Dragana Connaughton / Schoolyard Films

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